It’s no secret to people who read this blog that I hate the way scientific publishing works today. Most of my efforts in this domain have focused on removing barriers to the access and reuse of published papers. But there are other things that are broken with the way scientists communicate with each other, and chief amongst them is pre-publication peer review. I’ve written about this before, and won’t rehash the arguments here, save to say that I think we should publish first, and then review. But one could argue that I haven’t really practiced what I preach, as all of my lab’s papers have gone through peer review before they were published.

Some ground rules. I will not filter comments except to remove obvious spam. You are welcome to post comments under your name or under a pseudonym – I will not reveal anyone’s identity – but I urge you to use your real name as I think we should have fully open peer review in science.

OK. Now for the paper, which is posted on arxiv and can be linked to, cited there. We also have a copy here, in case you’re having trouble with figures on arXiv.

I was waiting for your weekly “open thread” to ask this question, but it seems that there won’t be one. I’m working on my homeschool curriculum. I’m wondering what books on evolution you might recommend for intelligent non-biologists. The students will know basic algebra and practical statistics. Although the students will be (my) children I am not looking for children’s books.

I have “The Selfish Gene” on my tentative list, but I haven’t read it yet so I can’t judge its quality. I’m also not a fan of Dawkins and he seems to be a bit of a creationist when it comes to humans. Also on the list is Darwin’s Origin of Species, but it is mostly for historical value, since it is still rather Lamarkian and doesn’t cover genetics or drift. So right now I have those two on my list and I’d like a third.

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Gene Expression

This blog is about evolution, genetics, genomics and their interstices. Please beware that comments are aggressively moderated. Uncivil or churlish comments will likely get you banned immediately, so make any contribution count!

About Razib Khan

I have degrees in biology and biochemistry, a passion for genetics, history, and philosophy, and shrimp is my favorite food. In relation to nationality I'm a American Northwesterner, in politics I'm a reactionary, and as for religion I have none (I'm an atheist). If you want to know more, see the links at http://www.razib.com